Be sure to include your name, daytime phone number, address, name and phone number of legal next-of-kin, method of payment, and the name of the funeral home/crematory to contact for verification of death.

The opening of a wave of new apartment communities in downtown Durham and Raleigh promises to usher in a new phase of downtown redevelopment activity in the Triangle. It also has the potential to reshape the growth patterns for a region that until now has been known more for its sprawling subdivisions than its urban living.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it will start emergency dredging Wednesday to reopen the sand-clogged navigation channel at Oregon Inlet, which is closed to most boaters as the summer tourism season approaches.

North Carolinians should get ready for a sea-level rise over the next three decades that could be as little as 3.5 inches on the southern coast and as much as 10.6 inches in the northern Outer Banks, a state science advisory panel said Tuesday.

Seeing Petty in the midst of the state government complex on Tuesday got Dome to thinking about the time Petty, a Republican, sought statewide elective office. Petty ran in 1996 for Secretary of State, losing to Democrat Elaine Marshall, who still holds the office.